


A Visitor

by Nemo_the_Everbeing



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Horror, Jurgen Leitner's Library, cosmic horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 02:23:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12571616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemo_the_Everbeing/pseuds/Nemo_the_Everbeing
Summary: Statement of Theresa Scott, regarding someone following behind.  Original statement given 19th October, 1984.





	A Visitor

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to my stupendous beta, Zircon, whose Brit-picks are always helpful, and who adds polish to stories even if she's never heard of the source material. I am endlessly grateful to her, and to this challenge for getting me back into writing. It feels nice to finally post something again.
> 
> This story is set mid-season 1.

It had been a day of laptop statements read with half-attentiveness, half-incredulousness.  The statement regarding a haunted burrito had entertainment value at least, and Sims had found it difficult to remain professionally detached while reading it.  Once he had stopped recording and made certain the file had saved to the archives’ cloud storage (he was determined to drag his branch of the Magnus Institute into the twenty-first century, no matter how it might kick and scream), he had found it absolutely necessary for his sanity to call in Sasha and Martin—Tim being off following up on one of their cases—to read it after him.  Laughter was a rare thing in the archives, and well worth the delay in recording time.

After they had both read the file and Sasha had wandered off, chuckling and promising to follow up on the hapless young man who had been so plagued by paranormal Mexican food, Martin had elected to stay for a bit.  Sims wanted to protest his presence—Martin sitting and listening in would inevitably mean Martin getting behind on whatever it was he was actually supposed to be doing—but it was a pleasant enough day and their workload hadn’t grown overmuch in the past month.  An hour or so of company would not go amiss. 

At times he felt himself a hermit, locked in amidst two hundred years’ accumulated files and supernatural happenings.  He had friends outside the Institute, although by that point in his life he had lost the majority who were not themselves believers in things beyond common belief.  He disliked the looks that some had given him years ago when he had told them what sort of research it was he was engaged in: pity and worry, the sort that preceded a call from some well-intended mental health professional. 

That was one of many challenges in what he did.  The populace at large did not believe in ghosts, or monsters, or anything beyond what they saw in their day-to-day lives.  Psychiatrists—when told the factual truth that Jonathan Sims, being of sound mind and body, had seen things that defied explanation—would think him mad. 

But he knew what he saw was real.  He had been in artifact storage, though never for very long, and never alone.  He had been on investigations that destroyed any skepticism he might have maintained.  Whether or not the statements he read were truth or fantasy was one thing, but the _possibility_ that they were true was indisputable.

It was perhaps this reason, moreso even than a natural stand-offishness, that led to his colleagues at the Institute being his most constant source of social contact.  There could be no other reason why he would permit Martin to remain, perched in a nearby chair and smiling at him with that grating congeniality of his.

Sims reached for the next file and opened it.  It was yellowed a bit, not to the extent that he had seen in the few cases from before 1900 that he had seen, but not as crisp as the cases from the past decade either.  He clicked ‘Record’ on the laptop and began to speak:

“Statement of Theresa Scott, regarding someone following behind.  Original statement given on 19th November, 1984.  Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.  Statement begins.” 

Sims’ fingers fell onto the first line, a bad habit from his childhood when he had become slightly obsessed with speed reading.  Though he no longer needed the prompt, it felt natural to follow along, the indentations of the penmanship brushing across his fingertips and making the story real.  For some reason, that felt even more necessary in the archives.  He began to read aloud, _‘I’m not actually sure if I ought to be here.  I mean, I know there’s nothing you can do to help me, and I’m worried that he’ll come after you if I tell you about it.  That’s what happened to me—may be what happened to me.  It’s not really clear.  That’s another reason I’m not keen to tell you about this.  I don’t know how much sense it’s going to make.’_

Then he stopped the recording.  This was a much more recent habit, and one born of necessity rather than youthful vanity.  There was nothing quite so disappointing as having read an entire statement, only to discover that his digital copy was corrupted beyond recognition.  If he got a few lines in and then stopped to check the playback, the corruption that accompanied _those_ statements would already be in evidence.

He cued up the short file and hit ‘play’.  The introduction recorded fine, but he felt a frisson of fear as the words ‘a man following behind’ were accompanied by the soft fizz of static.  As he began to read the statement proper the static rose, distorting his words past recognition.  No matter how often Sims heard the distortion it never failed to make his heart beat faster.  He didn’t show it, of course.  He couldn’t let himself show it.

Martin was under no such self-imposed restraint, and said, “Oh!  It’s one of them, isn’t it?  One of the actually supernatural ones.”

Sims was obligated to deny, to remain skeptical, to push back the creeping sense of _presence_ that such statements gave him, as though their hidden corners and unexplored depths had snuck into the archives unnoticed and now stood just behind his shoulder.  He could almost hear a deep, wet breathing in his ear.  Had Gertrude Robinson felt this as well?  Was it all in his head?  There were those imaginary psychiatrists again, giving him looks of concern.

He snorted, and said, “Don’t make assumptions, Martin.  We don’t know why certain statements won’t record to my laptop, and I’m certainly not about to assume that it’s because the paranormal dislikes digital.”

Martin frowned, and Sims busied himself setting the laptop aside and pulling the elderly tape recorder toward him.  The plastic of the buttons felt permanently gritty, as though in aging it had taken on the dust and the taint of all the things it had heard.

And that was fanciful thinking, if ever there was any.  In a gesture that recalled teen years pressing his tape recorder near to the radio, Sims hit the ‘Play’ and ‘Record’ buttons simultaneously, and the soft sound of the advancing cassette filled the small office. 

He started again. “Statement of Theresa Scott, regarding someone following behind.  Original statement given on 19th November, 1984.  Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.  Statement begins: 

_‘I’m not actually sure if I ought to be here.  I mean, I know there’s nothing you can do to help me, and I’m worried that he’ll come after you if I tell you about it.  That’s what happened to me—may be what happened to me.  It’s not really clear.  That’s another reason I’m not keen to tell you about this.  I don’t know how much sense it’s going to make._

_‘I suppose I should at least explain as much as I can, and let you sort the rest.  I mean, that’s what you do, isn’t it?  Sort out all these impossible things?  I’m hoping that’s what you do._

_‘I’m an artist.  Oils, mostly, though I’ve dabbled in watercolors from time to time.  I do mostly still lifes and portraits; traditional stuff, a little Rembrandt mixed with a little Caravaggio.  Deep shadows and lush colors._

_‘I got married last year to a lovely man named Louis.  He’s an antiques dealer, and owns a share in a gallery that displays my work.  That’s how we met, about five years ago.  Antiques are a hard industry to break into, especially for Louis.  His parents are from Jamaica, like mine, and we’ve both had troubles being accepted in our fields.  I think that’s what drew us together at first; that and a love for good wine._

_‘I think that’s why he took the contract with the Scandinavian.  He told me all about the opportunity to meet and network with other antiques dealers and antiquarian booksellers.  It was the way to finally make it, he thought, to get in with some reputable people who could refer him.  Louis specializes in art, but he wants to break into furniture and curios._

_‘At first, everything was fine.  He’d have to leave at odd hours to meet other dealers, yes, but it wasn’t much bother.  He told me that they seemed a lot like him: not the large auction houses, but men and women who kept small, select collections for discerning buyers.  As such, he hadn’t heard of any of them, but he said they were all very friendly.  Far more so than he had come to expect in the business._

_‘For the first two months it was a dream.  Louis bought furniture all over the country, and it was of such amazing quality.  He told me that, if he could set this up right, he could start an entire business around those sorts of acquisitions.  Naturally, I was excited, and I asked him to show me one of the pieces._

_‘He brought home an end table, one of those small square ones with nooks on each side meant for books.  It certainly looked old and beautiful, but it was also strange.  I don’t know how to explain it, but I could have sworn it had too many nooks.  You looked at the top and it was a pentagon, but I will swear up and down that there were six sides._

_‘I didn’t say anything.  I’ve learned too well that if you look like I do and you say anything that smacks of superstition, people stop listening to you fast.  So I just smiled, and told him it looked great.  He brought more pieces home after that, before bringing them to the Scandinavian.  The more I saw, the stranger I felt.  Every piece was wrong, but I couldn’t say how, so I said nothing at all._

_‘In the midst of all of this furniture, the Scandinavian set him to buying books.  Loads of them, apparently, and all of them strange enough even Louis noticed.  He didn’t bring them home or anything, and I was fine with that.  If he hadn’t noticed how odd the furniture was, and I’d felt so strange around that, I couldn’t imagine what I would make of those books._

_‘He told me that the titles were mostly in Latin.  He’s quite good with that sort of thing; it’s useful for his business.  I can’t remember them, but I do recall they were all … off.  I think there was one about doors, maybe?  I don’t know._

_‘Like I said, this went on for two months, and then Louis was sent after another book. Normally, he was given a title, the name of the dealer, and the location of their shop, but this time the Scandinavian was very hesitant with even the smallest details, except for one thing: he told Louis that it was crucial that he not open the book._

_‘Louis was more than a bit concerned about that.  He needed to appraise those books as part of his job, to make certain they were in good condition.  The Scandinavian told him no, that Louis was not to open the book under any circumstances, and that the Scandinavian would appraise it himself.  Then he said something very odd.  Something I remembered well enough that I can write it down here word for word.  He said, ‘You must not open the book, no matter how much it wants you to.’_

_‘Just like that.  Like it made sense.  Then he sent Louis on his way with nothing more than an address and the name of a bookshop._

_‘I know how this sounds, looking back.  I know that we should have realized that something was wrong, but the opportunity was too good to turn down, and the contacts Louis was making were letting him build his own business.  It was his dream.  So when the Scandinavian asked Louis to get this book without opening it, Louis accepted the job without any fuss._

_‘He told me that the meeting was in this dim old bookshop, and from the off everything seemed wrong.  Louis had been on that street just a few days before, and would have sworn there was no business in that location, but there it was. Not much to it, just a few shelves with very old, moldy books.  They didn’t even seem preserved.  And the shopkeeper made him very uncomfortable.  He was a younger man, Louis said, but there was something wrong with his skin.  It seemed soft, not like a baby, but like butter that was too warm.  As if it was about to melt off him.  He was very pale, even his eyes, and when he looked at Louis it was all Louis could do not to turn around and walk out._

_‘God, but I wish he had just left, and told the Scandinavian that if he wanted that book so badly, he could get it himself.  Louis didn’t do that, of course.  He’s conscientious to a fault.  When he promised to do the job, the Scandinavian had to know that he would do it no matter his own feelings on the matter._

_‘The shopkeeper held out a book, small and thin, without any title on it.  Louis started worrying right away.  After all, he couldn’t even confirm the title.  He didn’t even know the title!  But the shopkeeper said that this was the book the Scandinavian wanted.  What choice did Louis really have?  If it was the wrong volume, the Scandinavian could take it up with the seller.  Louis bought the book, and the man put it in a bag.  Louis couldn’t leave fast enough._

_‘He hurried back to the Scandinavian’s office, wanting to be rid of that book and the memory of that shopkeeper as soon as he could.  All the way, he found that he wanted to check the book, just to be certain that it was the right one.  He didn’t know why it bothered him so much.  It’s not as though the Scandinavian would blame Louis if it was wrong.  And yet he wanted to check._

_‘He didn’t, though.  I need you to know that.  He never opened the book himself.  Instead, someone came out of nowhere and bumped into him hard enough to knock him over.  The bag came out of his hand, and the book fell out.  It came open, as I suppose you could guess, right to the first page.  He shut it straight away, but by then, he said, he had read the first line.  He couldn’t help himself.  The urge to read more was strong, but he resisted it all the way back to the Scandinavian._

_‘He explained what had happened, and the Scandinavian didn’t blame Louis for the book coming open.  He said that Louis probably hadn’t read enough to be harmful, and the Scandinavian already had storage set up for the book.  Louis didn’t ask what sort of harm a book could do._

_‘When Louis got home, he was worried.  He said he still wanted to read that book.  He couldn’t even remember what the first line had said, but he felt as though he needed to read more.  I told him he was just curious.  The Scandinavian had sent him out after so many things, and it was natural that after a time he would wonder what it was all for.  Especially a book that he was told not to read._

_‘After that, things quietened down.  Louis spent about a week mostly doing paperwork for the Scandinavian, securing shipping permits for the furniture, that sort of thing.  I was busy painting a still life of some daisies and a tea-set for a commission.  I admit, I forgot all about the book and Louis’ odd experience._

_‘Then, one day I was going to our bookshelf for a reference volume on Cezanne.  My client wanted something in a more cheerful palette than I normally used, and I wanted to … you don’t care about this at all, do you?  Sorry.  I get carried away about color sometimes.  What I meant to tell you was that, when I reached for my reference, I found a little leather-bound book.  It wasn’t fancy, no gold leaf or embossing.  It was plain, a sort of pale tan, with no title on it at all.  But it was clearly old._

_‘Well, I looked inside.  I didn’t even think about it.  It had been a week since Louis’ odd experience, and it never occurred to me that it was the same book._

_‘Here’s the bit that I don’t know if you’ll believe: I can’t remember what it said.  It’s a novel, I think, about a woman who reads a book.  But I couldn’t tell you what she's like, or what happens to her.  I couldn’t tell you when it was written.  I can’t even tell you where it takes place.  It’s written in English, I’m certain, because I can’t read any other language, so maybe it’s set in London?  No, that doesn’t seem right.  I don’t think I recognized any of the streets, or any of the names at all._

_‘It was compelling, though—the most compelling book I’ve ever read.  I needed to keep reading, to find out what happened to her.  “A Visitor”!  Oh, god, that’s it!  It’s called “A Visitor”, and it’s about a woman who has … a visitor … damn.  It’s gone again.  But that is definitely the title.  There is a title page, and I can picture it clearly now._

_‘No author, though, which didn’t strike me as odd until now._

_‘I don’t know how long I read the book.  A few hours maybe?  It seemed like minutes, and I don’t think I read as quickly as I usually do.  I must have read slowly.  It was a thin volume, but I still hadn’t got to the end.  When I heard Louis unlocking the front door, I realized it was growing dark outside, and I had somehow missed the entire afternoon._

_‘I knew I needed to confront him about this, because I knew it was the book that he was supposed to buy for the Scandinavian.  There was no way it couldn’t be.  We didn’t own anything like it, and it was just so compelling.  Surely that was why he wasn’t supposed to open it._

_‘But that meant that Louis had stolen the book from his employer, and that didn’t sound at all like the Louis I knew.  Maybe he had forgotten it in his briefcase?  But that made no sense, either._

_‘I looked down, and I was seized by this sudden urge not to let him know that I had the book.  That it had to be my secret, or something terrible could happen.  I had the strangest thought: what if Louis hadn’t stolen it?_

_‘What if it had followed him home?_

_‘I shoved the book into one of the drawers where I kept my art supplies, and where I knew Louis never looked.  It would be safe there until I was alone again and could finish it._

_‘How long did it go on, me pretending that I didn’t have the book and Louis seeming to know nothing?  Another week?  Whenever I was alone, I read it, but I still didn’t come any closer to finishing it.  My work was stalled because I was so consumed.  I worried that I would fall behind on my commissions, but it didn’t stop me reading._

_‘Then one morning I woke up and I was sitting in the armchair in my studio.  I had fallen asleep in our bed, but must have sleepwalked.  And that didn’t seem to be all I had done in my sleep, either, because a white canvas had been set out on my easel and gessoed, while my commissioned still life had been put in the corner._

_‘The book was in my lap, and I knew I had finished it.  I felt different, transformed.  I was still Tessie, but I was also someone else.  I had visions in my mind of a place that couldn’t be, of a deep indigo sea stretching to the horizon, and a lone boat on it.  The shore—the only one I could see, and indeed the only shore I believe to exist in an otherwise endless expanse of ocean—held the crumbling ruins of a city.  It had been beautiful beyond description aeons before humans existed, but the city was now gutted, and crumbling, and abandoned.  Even so, the patterns and geometry of that place burned in me.  I had to capture that image, even though no one would buy something so fantastical._

_‘I took up my brushes and my paints and I began to work.  The lake came easily, though I’ve never thought myself particularly good at water.  Too many reflections.  But in this water there was more than the reflection of the city I would soon paint.  There were hints of even greater and stranger civilizations below the placid surface._

_‘The sky came next, and it was black, but it wasn’t, because I know I used almost every color I had in it, and a few combinations I hadn’t even considered before.  There were stars, too, but too far away, and maybe not stars at all.  I felt a definite sense that each of them was aware and looking on this lake.  This strange, oppressive sky descended until it touched the water, and then a sweep of my brush made the two continuous.  That was important, for some reason._

_‘And there, where sky met endless and fathomless ocean, the city came into being.  I say came into being, because by that point I was growing certain that I could not be painting this.  That isn’t to say I don’t have the talent; I’m not so modest that I won’t say I’m good at what I do—but this wasn’t anything like my work.  Even the brushstrokes weren’t mine._

_‘I’ve never gone in for overly-intricate painting; I’ve always preferred bold lines and letting my shadows do the suggestion for me.  But on this canvas I worked in my smallest brushes and knives to lay in and then carve out the strange dimensions of that place.  Each line as it was in my head sprung up on the canvas, twisting up toward some broken and beautiful spire, half-lit in the light of those stars, and half in its own impossible radiance._

_‘When I finished the city I thought I must be done, but I kept moving.  There was one more thing to paint.  It was so simple after the impossibility of that city: just a little wooden boat.  A few curved lines, the suggestion of timbers, but no need to define them like I had felt with the city.  Just a little boat, with a few ripples spread about it._

_‘Then the light came on.  I had been painting in the dark, and it was night.  Just like the reading, I must have painted all day.  Louis stood behind me, staring at my work.  All at once I was overwhelmed by the hours and hours I have been bound to my easel, focused beyond all sense on that place and that painting.  My arms dropped to my sides and the brush fell out of my hand.  I couldn’t even uncurl my fingers from the cramped position they had been in.  My vision swam, and I think I fainted._

_‘When I came to, it was in hospital.  Louis had called the ambulance, and he was sitting next to my bed.  He was looking at me with such concern, and the whole story came tumbling out of me.  I don’t think he believed me.  He said that he hadn’t seen the book since he gave it to the Scandinavian, but we could look at it together when we got back to our flat, and we could look at the painting too.  He sounded so calming, so kind, and so very like he thought I was going mad.  I knew I couldn’t say more, but I agreed to show him the book once we got back._

_‘They let me go home shortly after; a simple case of exhaustion and dehydration, they said, and told me not to work so hard without a few breaks.  I didn’t tell the doctors about the book or the painting._

_‘You might think you know what happened when we got home, but I suspect you would only be half-right.  The book was nowhere to be found.  Not in the drawer, not on the floor near the armchair, or under the cushions, or anywhere in the room, despite me remembering it being in my lap when I awoke.  It was just gone._

_‘I hunted for it, digging under the skirt of the armchair and searching all the surfaces and shelves.  I thought I must have put it somewhere before I went to work.  Louis watched me a bit, growing more and more concerned, and then turned his focus to the painting.  I barely glanced at it, not wanting to be drawn in again, and I had the desire to tell him to step away, that it wasn’t safe, but I didn’t want him to think me any madder than he already did._

_‘Then Louis said something that made me stop and look, “You’ve done the man in the boat very well, Tessie,” he said.  “I don’t know how you managed all the little folds in his clothing at that scale.”_

_‘I turned, not wanting to see, because I knew that I had not painted anyone in the boat.  There had been no one at all in that desolate landscape.  But when I joined Louis to stand before the canvas, there was indeed a man, or something that looked like a man.  It stood there, wearing some sort of medieval-looking robe.  I couldn’t tell you what color the robe was, because it seemed to pick up all the not-colors in the sky.  Its face was hidden under a hood, if it even had a face._

_‘“I didn’t paint that,” I whispered.  “Did you see it before we left?”_

_‘“I don’t know, Tess.  I was a bit more preoccupied with you than I was with your painting.”  He must have seen how upset I was, because he took my hands in his and said, “Hey, I’ll ask my employer about the book.  How about that?  He can show me he still has it, and you can relax.  Who knows?  Maybe we picked up the book you read by accident at a jumble sale or something, and you’ll find it tomorrow.”_

_‘I stayed close to him the rest of the night, strangely terrified to be alone.  I fell asleep early, and dreamed of that city, of walking in its streets.  There was no one there, because the city had been abandoned before our world was formed.  A wind came off the sea, and it smelled old and dead._

_‘I was walking toward that broken spire, though I don’t know why.  I was halfway down an avenue, looking up at it, when I heard something behind me.  It was barely more than a rustle, but in the stillness of that city I heard it as clearly as anything._

_‘I turned, and there, at the end of the road, under a crumbled geometric arch that linked the buildings on either side of the avenue, stood the man from the boat.  He didn’t move toward me, and I knew I must not speak to him.  I didn’t want to turn my back on him, but I needed to get to the spire.  So I turned and kept walking, and all the while he followed behind me._

_‘I woke without reaching the spire, and without that man getting any closer.  I felt disturbed, but for some reason the terror of the day before had subsided.  Louis seemed relieved by that, at least, and promised that he would ask after the book as soon as possible.  I don’t know what he planned on telling the Scandinavian: the mere thought of a book that ought not be read was driving his wife mad?_

_‘No, that’s cruel.  Louis would have been discreet about it, I’m sure.  After he had gone to work, I wasn’t certain what to do.  I didn’t want to go back into my studio with that painting there, and the book was finished and gone.  I should have been relieved, but I just felt a bit lost._

_‘I tried to rest and eat, follow the doctors’ advice, but as I sat in our living room, I could have sworn I saw movement in the front hall.  I got up, thinking something had been pushed through our letterbox.  There wasn’t anything there.  I went back to the sitting room, and again I thought I saw something move in the front hall.  This time, when there was nothing below the letterbox, I moved from the living room up to our bedroom.  I shut the door, and then I spent hours trying to ignore the fact that the curtains on the windows seemed to have someone standing behind them.  Someone who was never there when I got up to look.  Eventually, I was so rattled I went to the kitchen and sat at our table with my head buried in my arms, where there wouldn’t be any more movement to see._

_‘This continued until Louis got home.  He told me that his employer did still have the book, and had shown it to him.  I didn’t tell him what I had seen.  He wouldn’t have believed me._

_‘The next day, when he went to work, I saw movement everywhere, just out of the corner of my eye.  I was finally driven to distraction, and left for the park with my sketchbook.  I had a commission for a painting of a glade, anyway, and with luck I would find some inspiration and get started.  I would have to dispose of that other painting first, of course.  Maybe I could convince Louis to do it._

_‘I did manage a productive afternoon, and the crowds moving about me kept me distracted.  I realized I had been isolated too long, staying at home, reading and painting.  I needed to get out, meet up with friends again, and stop being such a fussy old hermit._

_‘I was so relieved by this realization that I actually felt happy walking back home with my sketchbook tucked under my arm, and several very good starts at the wooded glade ready to show my client for selection._

_‘Then I heard the rustling, just like it had been in my dream.  I turned, and there he was, far back along the street.  People walked by him, but they didn’t seem concerned at all, even passing so close to a very tall man in medieval robes, with his face all hidden under a hood.  The maddening thing was that I still couldn’t tell what color those robes were.  Not even in daylight._

_‘I turned and hurried home, and all the way, I heard him rustling behind me._

_‘I didn’t talk about it with Louis.  I didn’t want him to worry after the scare I’d given him with the painting.  I didn’t go into my studio either.  I was worried the man wouldn’t be in the boat anymore, or that something else would have changed.  Instead, I focused on spending as much time as possible with Louis.  He seemed happy enough about it, and when I was close to someone, it didn’t seem as if the man was nearby._

_‘But Louis still had work, and I wasn’t about to be the irrational wife demanding her husband be with her every minute of every day.  I could manage the man following behind me, especially so long as I spent most of my time out and about.  I would eventually have to go into my studio and fetch my paints and portable easel if I wanted to make a proper go at the wooded glade, which my client had chosen from the options I had offered, but in the meantime I was finding other subjects and other means of relying more on my sketchbook or camera than actual painting._

_‘I don’t know how long I could have got away with it—acting normal around Louis, staying close to crowds and ignoring the rustling that followed me everywhere—but it was only two days before a knock came at the door while I was getting ready to leave for the day.  Louis was already out, so I went and answered it.  The man there wasn’t young, per se, but he wasn’t old either.  He seemed the sort who settled into middle age and planned to stay there a while._

_‘When he spoke, he spoke with this crisp, posh accent.  I mean, he sounded entirely English, but he said he was Mr Leitner, and he employed my husband.  I realized that this was the Scandinavian, and felt immediately put off-balance.  How much did he know about my experiences with the book?  Did he know about the man too?_

_‘He told me that my husband had mentioned a painting I had recently finished, of a boat on a lake, and he was very interested in buying it.  I had the immediate urge to tell him no, to get rid of the painting rather than give it to someone like this, although I couldn’t say why.  He was entirely pleasant.  Then he offered me the sort of money that painters of my reputation don’t get offered, and all for a painting I didn’t want to keep anyway._

_‘So I led him into the studio, going in myself for the first time since the painting was finished.  It was as intricate and strange as it had been when I had painted it, and it was with some great relief that I saw the man in the boat, standing in the same position.  Mr Leitner approached the painting and studied it for long moments.  He told me it really was remarkable workmanship, and offered me even more than he had before.  I wasn’t in the habit of haggling, commissions being more a fixed affair, and gallery managers being the type to extend a single offer, but even I knew that a client didn’t offer more without prompting once the initial price had been named._

_‘What can I say?  I accepted.  I wanted the money, and I didn’t want that painting.  I had some hope that, if I sold it, the man who walked behind me would go with it, and he would follow Mr Leitner instead of me.  Mr Leitner fetched a leather case from his car, and put the painting inside.  He was polite, even gentlemanly.  I could see why my husband worked for him._

_‘After he was gone, taking that painting with him, I went back into the studio, collected my portable easel, paints, and a canvas, and walked toward the park, feeling lighter than I had in ages.  The afternoon was lovely, and I got a good rough of the glade done, and photos taken to continue my work later.  Then I packed up my things and started for home again._

_‘Halfway there I heard the rustling.  When I looked, he was there.  Closer.  No one saw him, and I knew they couldn’t help.  I kept walking, and he was there._

_‘He’s been there for weeks now, everywhere.  Last night, I awoke to find him standing over our bed.  I screamed, and woke Louis up, but the man was gone.  I told Louis I had a nightmare._

_‘I should think I’m going mad, but I don’t.  Instead, I believe that the book has let something out, and it wants me.  That same night, after Louis fell asleep again, I looked at my bedside table.  The book is back, and I think it wants Louis next._

_‘I’m not letting that happen.  No matter what happens to me, I’ll protect him.  I’ve given the book to your people, and hopefully they know how to keep it away from us.  I don’t think it will stop the man, though.  I think he was guaranteed to find me the moment I started reading._

_‘Oh.  Oh god, I remember something.  I’m sorry, I really am, but I have to do this.  I have to be certain that it stops coming for Louis.  I’m sorry.’_

Sims flipped the page and started reading automatically, the deep lull of the statements having taken hold of him to the extent that it didn’t seem odd for a few sentences that the words on the page were not at all in the style of Mrs Scott.  In fact, they were strangely enthralling, the prose having a certain flare he had never encountered before.  It—

“Jon!”  Martin’s hand slammed down on the page, even as he scrabbled to close the file folder.  Sims snapped out of the slight daze and leaped to his feet.

Martin was a flurry of movement as he bundled the closed folder close to his chest and reached for the corded phone at the corner of Jon’s desk.  A directory of numbers was taped to its side on yellowed paper in case anyone forgot, and it was the work of a moment to dial up secure containment. 

Martin’s voice was high and nervous when he said, “Yes, this is the archives.  I think we’ve got an active artifact in one of our files.  Yes.  A page from a book.”  He looked down at the folder.  “I … um, I think it’s one of Jurgen Leitner’s books.  There’s a statement with it, about a woman who read it and was followed by someone.  You can read the file too, if you want.”

“They can’t have the statement,” Sims said, keeping any tremor from his voice.  He reminded himself that Mr Scott had also read several lines, and had apparently been unaffected by the book.  It was likely fine.  Likely.

Damn.  It had been years since he had seen one of Leitner’s books himself, but he had never forgotten how horrifying it was.  Books were a constant source of comfort and interest to him, and so to have them turned against him, to have there be danger in the very reading … he refused to shudder, but he also refused to look at the file Martin kept clutched tight, as though he feared Sims would snatch it from his hands to keep reading.

He didn’t feel the need to do that, which was good.  He had no desire to sit for hours, poring over the text the way Mrs Scott had.  He was fine.

“We need to find Mrs and Mr Scott,” he said. 

Martin said, “We can look into it after secure containment comes and takes away the pages.”

“Right.”  He had known that.  He was well acquainted with safety precautions and procedure.  Damn, he was rattled.  “Of course.  I would normally discount a statement like this as incipient madness, but with Leitner’s involvement …”  He didn’t need to say it.  Martin had known him long enough to know all about the deep-seated fears and well-founded caution Sims had regarding Jurgen Leitner and his library.

“How was there a page in there anyway?  Gertrude must have read through everything at least once,” Martin said.

“I don’t know.”

“How did she not notice she had an active artifact in one of her files?  Wasn’t she supposed to check or something?  I mean, I wasn’t working in the archives then, but I feel like that’s part of the job.”

“I don’t know, Martin!”  Sims immediately regretted shouting.  It made him sound far more panicked than he was.

Martin, who couldn’t see his way through a filing system or a database without a compass and a map, had compassion to spare, and seemed to delight on pouring it all over Sims.  The more Sims protested, the more insistent Martin tended to become.  “I heard it, Jon,” he said, calmer, though still strained.  “You read it, but I heard it.  Whatever’s going to happen, we’re in it together.”

That was not a comfort. 

“And besides,” Martin went on, “nothing’s going to happen.  Louis saw a few lines, didn’t he?  And he’s fine.”

Sims hated to be the alarmist, especially with Martin barely backed down from his panic.  But he had to point out the obvious.  “Is he, though?  We won’t know that until we follow up on the statement and find the Scotts.”

Martin’s mobile face scrunched into a frown, and silence descended.  Sims wanted to start in on a new file, to purge this one from his mind.  He looked at the tape recorder, which was still rolling, and turned it off.

“What are you going to do with the tape?  It’s got the reading, too.”

“We’ll have to turn it over to secure containment, and I’ll have to re-record Mrs Scott’s statement,” Sims said.  “No one ought listen to that tape, just to be certain.”  He ejected it, and handled it with more care than was likely necessary. 

The people from secure containment arrived quickly, taking the tape and the file.  They likely would have taken everything, but Sims’ insistence saw a rapid transfer of the page itself into a heavy, lined briefcase.  The file was then thoroughly inspected for nearly ten minutes, each page looked at, in spite of the fact that Sims was going to have to do it all again for his report.  He could admire thoroughness, but found it frustrating when it got in the way of his work, particularly in his own office. 

At last the briefcase and tape were removed.  He and Martin were left alone.  Martin had spent the whole of the secure containment team’s visit standing back, pressed against the wall like a great lanky shadow.  He would have looked ridiculous standing there, nervously chewing at his nails, if Sims had been in any mood to find things ridiculous.

He was about to tell Martin to leave, lest he be driven to distraction, but Martin spoke first.  “Jon,” he said, his voice soft and deeply concerned.  It pricked at that same instinct in Sims that insisted he always act more skeptical about the statements than he truly was.  “What was the book about?  I heard it fifteen minutes ago, and I … I don’t remember.”

The instinct started to clamor: he needed to deny, to obfuscate.  He could not tell the truth, especially a truth that felt so unfathomably distant.  It was all the barest of recollections to him, as though he had read the page years before, not mere minutes.  He reached hard for his shield of skepticism–

“It was about two men who read a book,” he said.


End file.
